Homeword Bound Book II: Brothers and Sisters
by JonHarper
Summary: One year has passed since the Colonials made it to Earth leading many to question what really happened thousands of years ago. But a quest to find the truth may not bring the answers anyone hoped for. Meanwhile humanities enemies are on the move.
1. Prologue Part 1: One Year

Many Thanks to all my fans who stuck by this story, your patience has been rewarded. I´d also like to thank Count, Glen and Tyr for their help for without them this story wouldnt be ready yet. So enjoy this story everyone.

Neither Battlestar Galactica nor Space Above and Beyond are owned by me. They are owned by their respective companies. This story is written for fun not profit. Well with that out of the way. Enjoy everyone and please review.

**Reagan Space Station.**

**Earth Orbit United States**

"One year.

One year ago we found Earth. We did what we set out to do, across countless light years, through dangers natural and artificial. We followed clues and legends, we lived through the ancient myths, we walked on the soil of Kobol and left our blood there. We crossed the sea of stars, nothing but death behind us and darkness in front. We did all that because we had faith, we had hope, and we were rewarded."

William Adama let his eyes rest on the faces of the people before him that stood on the hangar deck of the Reagan Space Fortress, one of Earth's mightiest defence stations. Some of the eyes looking back at him were familiar, Kara Thrace, Karl and Sharon Agathon, Felix Gaeta and Anastasia Dualla. Right at the front was his son Lee, dashing in Colonial grey decked with medals. They were names and faces that were family, regardless of their blood ties to him personally. Years of danger and hardship had brought them together and kept them there, and even now with their journey ended they still clung to those bonds.

"Our path was dangerous, deadly even. The Cylons never relented in their pursuit. Like the machines they are they hunted us without mercy right to the gates of Earth, right to the home of the Thirteenth tribe of man. And then they attacked our brothers and sisters here too.

They slaughtered civilians, attacked their protectors, fired without warning on warships. They tried to sweep through to Earth and destroy it as they had done to twelve other homeworlds before. They invaded this place, but came no further."

Also in the hangar arrayed in rank and file were people who's very existence was unknown just twelve months ago by Earth reckoning. They were officers and personnel of the United Nations of Earth, a group as diverse as the twelve colonies of Kobol all living on the same world. A union of different groups and nations, places with a history as ancient and proud as Caprica, Aerelon, Tauron or any other colony. He spotted Colonel McQueen, Nathan West, Cooper Hawkes and Shane Vansen, the first child of Earth they had encountered and the first true hope of salvation they had uncovered. Beside him stood the stalwart shape of Glenn Ross, immovable and constant as a mountain face. These people were new to him, but had by their actions proven their qualities.

"The people of Earth did not turn us away." Adama continued. "They gave us shelter; they welcomed us and accepted us as siblings in need. They did not blame us for the danger we brought with us, for without us the Cylons would never have found this place. We brought a war to their doorstep, and they met the challenge magnificently."

"The Cylons were beaten, their fleet destroyed before they could communicate the location of Earth. For now this place is still a sanctuary, and we can rest safe in her arms. For a little while.

But the Cylons are still out there, still hunting and one day they will find us, and they will come for us. We must be ready, children of Earth and the Colonies together, we must be prepared to stand as one, brothers and sisters all against the dark."

He looked down before continuing.

"One year ago today we found safety, but it was not for free. We had to pay for it with blood, just like we have always done. The United Earth Fleets and the last of the Colonial Fleet gave battle one last time, the final stand of the Colonies as they were. We won, we carried the day, but in so doing many lives were given. We are here enjoying the freedom of Earth because some among us gave up that chance. They will never walk these lands or breath the air of our new home. They willingly turned away from that desire and fought for us, sacrificed for us, and died for us."

"We remember the_ Saratoga_, we remember the ships of her task force, the pilots of her air wing and the Marines in her complement. We remember the _Galactica_, last of the Colonial Battlestars which for so long was our home and last hope of survival. Today we have realised that hope, but must never forget where we came from and how we came here.

"We remember the lives f those who could not be here. Whether they passed three years ago during the fall, or one year ago in the last battle of the Colonial Navy. As my friend Saul Tigh would say, we gave those frakking toasters the beating they were begging for."

There were a few laughs.

"And we remember Laura Roslin, the last President of the Colonies. It was her vision that brought us here, her faith and her strength which never faltered and drove us on to this final salvation. She died with Earth reflected in her eyes, knowing that we were safe and her duty to her people was finally done.

We can't go back to what we were, but we can learn and we can become something better. We have a second chance thanks to people like Laura, and Saul, and thousands of others. We are here because of them, and we can never forget.

It is said that life here began out there. We know now that is true, and it is still true. While there is life on Earth we cannot abandon the idea that out there, somewhere, human life persists. Hidden on colonies, secluded on distant refuges, locked on ships in the darkness of space.

They might still be out there even now, fighting for survival. We can't let them fight on alone."

station as she vanished.


	2. Prolouge Part 2: The Beast

**Prolouge Part II: The Beast**

**Battlestar Pegasus**

**Scorpion Fleetyards**

Helena Cain waited until the door slid shut behind her before exhaling a long laborious sigh and pulling the fastners of her jacket open. She stretched, arching her back and relieving the tense muscles that ran down that part of her body, an area that was seldom if ever totally free of pain.

It was an old injury, many years ago a young Lieutenant Cain had been a rising star, an elite Viper pilot with a glowing career in the fighter corps. She had dedicated herself to been the best combat pilot in the fleet and was not going to be satisfied with second place, that just wasn't who she was.

Heading back from a long patrol she had been making a standard hands on landing aboard the old Battlestar _Rycon_ in her MK V Viper when a Raptor had jumped in from nowhere right in front of her feet from the hangar pod. She had to take evasive action, and despite her skill she didn't quite make it, ploughing into the deck. Cain had ejected but at the wrong angle, and her seat had scraped along the deck. She was lucky to survive it, but her injuries were severe.

Lieutenant Cain ended up in hospital, the doctors claiming she would never walk again. Nine months later she was on her feet, and two years after that was back on active duty. Cain had a lot of connections, and with a few strings pulled she found herself on the command deck of a Battlestar. The rest was just hard work, fortune, and never settling for second place.

One enduring consequence of her near fatal crash was the pain. She had dispensed with chairs in her quarters in part to instil a certain mindset in her crew, but also because she found it intolerable to endure. Strictly speaking she should even be on active duty, but a little falsified medical report and the ability to keep a straight face through the discomfort saw her back on duty, if not in a fighter.

She was a poster child for the fleet, a symbol of determination and spirit. She had beaten the odds and certain senior officials liked the image she brought to the fleet. They fast tracked her promotion, made her an Admiral and then gave her one of the best ships in the fleet, the _Mercury_ class _Pegasus_.

She could do the job, there was no doubt of that, but her experience was all about breaking through barriers. It made her cool, single minded, unwilling to take advice when she had made up her mind and a sure belief that she was right. An Admiral needed to be certain and confident, but with Cain that was on another level. Behind her back many people simply dismissed her, claiming she had achieved her place by grace and favour rather than hard work.

Cain knew she had earned her command, she was the best, her ship was the best. There was no second place in the real world, you either won or you lost, that was all. Cain planned to win no matter what. Everyday was a victory, a challenge to meet and destroy utterly. She would not settle for second best ever.

She had a mountain of paperwork, requisitions from the yard, transfer orders for those crew Cain believed couldn't cut it, and a few transfer ins who wanted to try and prove themselves on the toughest ship in the fleet. It was quite a reputation, one Cain was proud of. Her crew were weapons, instruments of war, cold sharp and hard.

Razors.

She stretched again before making for her desk idly reading a report from Picon fleet headquarters about dispatching BSG-77 to the former mining colony of Troy near the armistice line, She grunted in amusement befor tossing the report aside resuming her trek to her desk, she made it about five yards before everything went suddenly wrong.

Without warning, with no indication of impending danger or even the slightest sense of trouble the _Pegasus_ jolted violently, the floor dipping and pitching Cain hard over onto the tough floor. She fought an exclamation as pain daggered through her back and the lights flickered slightly. She didn't give in, she focused through the pain and performed a quick mental checklist, grasping the immediate danger and reacting.

She forced herself upright, and without any further pause opened her door and made her way quickly to the CIC.

Beyond her door she found a different ship, the corridor was shattered and glowing orange with a series of electrical fires, cast through hazy acrid smoke. Injured crew screamed in the distant, some in pain, some in confusion, some in fear or anger. She stepped over panelling cast from the walls and came across two prone bodies, one of them looking groggily at her. It was Lieutenant Shaw, less than an hour into her career as a _Pegasus_ officer. Hell of a start.

"Are you okay?" Cain asked, receiving nothing but a hazy stare from the young woman.

She didn't have time to nursemaid one of her officers, she needed the crew up and running right now. With a grimace she drew back her hand and gave Shaw a hard slap across the face.

"Come on, on your feet. Get up soldier." She helped the dazed officer along, then checked on the second body. "Hoshi? Hoshi?"

She gave him a shake but to no avail, he was either out cold or dead. Either way he wasn't going to play a part in this fight, leaving her with Shaw.

"Okay, follow me to the CIC."

The ship continued to judder as they ran through to the CIC deep within the Battlestar, echoing impacts of missiles on the hull or transmitted through the docking connectors from the station itself. The explosions were constant, whatever was happening it was a truly massive assault.

The battle was over before it had begun. Surprise was complete, the first wave of fighters jumping in from far beyond Dradis range and showering wingfuls of nukes into the station and the mighty warships docked their awaiting overhaul or taking on stores. None of those first fighters survived, most getting caught in their own nuclear detonations, but naturally that mattered little to the Cylons.

One of the Battlestars was already gone, a refitted _Columbia_ class at the far most dock ripped into thirds by point blank nuclear strikes, the sad remnants slowly scattering across the station. Two more battlestars of smaller stature were also shattered, burning from end to end as wave after wave of Cylon raiders dropped into action. Docked further away from the main station hub _Pegasus_ had been lucky, but had still taken heavy damage and was venting atmosphere in a pall of smoke.

Cain pushed her way to the CIC, alarms ringing and smoke circulating through the damaged hull. She squeezed past yellow and red suited damage control officers hurrying to their stations, most were _Pegasus_ crew but a decent number were dock hands from the Scorpion yard itself now stranded on the warship and doing what they could.

"Close that one!" Commander Jurgen Belzen shouted across the chaotic room to the damage control officer, the status board blinking red where the _Pegasus_ had taken a nuke to the inner surface of the port pod. "As soon as the men are out seal the hatches, vent those compartments!"

Cain stepped over a pile of twisted wreckage, focused and grim while fires burned around her, deck officers quickly trying to extinguish them. She was glad to see her staff hard at work, doing their jobs despite the surprise, but had no time to congratulate them. They were only doing what she expected.

"What the hell hit us?" She demanded, glancing at the tactical plot in the middle of the CIC. She saw Colonel Fisk was down, and without Hoshi she'd have to rely on the new girl to handle his responsibility. She buttoned her uniform jacket, determined to fight this action appropriately attired and looked up to the status screens.

"From the radiological readings they look like Nuclear detonations, multiple hits." Belzen informed, the tall officer clearly anxious and fighting hard to keep on top of things.

"It's the Cylons, it has to be." Cain shook her head. "They've broken the armistice and sparked an all out attack."

Her staff silently agreed, it wasn't an accident, much as they wanted to believe it. This was a deliberate attack, a strike at the fleet while in dock with no warning and no mercy. Only the Cylons could be responsible.

"Amazing we still have power." The Admiral noticed.

"But that's about it." Belzen reported. "Dradis is erratic, weapons are offline, same with all our computers. We have to do everything manually."

The ship docked beside the _Pegasus_ exploded in a rolling explosion, a fleet escort carrier it had nowhere near the protection of a Battlestar and was gutted by a nuke taking its full compliment with it before it could even power up. Chunks of the vessel slashed into the fleet yards, and several thousand tons of its smashed hull got as far as the _Pegasus_ herself, bouncing off the armoured hide with deafening clangs.

There was no return fire from the ships or station, nothing rose up to meet the hundreds of Cylon fighters as they engaged freely and unopposed. The unarmoured structure of the yards proved completely open to attack, even strafing runs could pierce the surface in gouts of flame. The warships required more ordnance, but that was something the Cylons had in multitudes.

Cain dropped her head and leaned heavily on the plotting table, squeezing shut her eyes and willing herself not to buckle at the knees. Everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. She knew her ship and its crew, she knew they were more than capable of handling themselves in action when the time came, that their guns and squadrons would slaughter the Cylons in droves. Yet now battle had broken upon them, and it had done so when her ship was all but useless. No fighters fuelled and ready, no guns armed, no fire control, not even power to the weapon systems themselves.

She was trapped unable to fight back, unable to aid the defence, and their first taste of real combat was going to be their last.

The sky burned in all directions as the fleet yards fell apart, fuel silos erupting as Cylon missiles cracked them open. Tylium ignited in massive flashes of light, ripping vast sections of the sprawling station apart. Broken chunks of warships rolled away in flames while their crews desperately tried to get into the fight, trying to buy those extra few seconds necessary to man action stations and return fire.

None of them knew that it didn't matter. One ship closed up successfully for action, the _Valkyrie_ class _Odin_ powered her guns and swept them upwards ready to deliver fire to the Cylons. Her engines growled, pushing her forward and attempting to get clear of the dying station and into open space where she could manoeuvre.

With no warning the _Odin_ lost power, her engines flaming out and her batteries turning silent before they could even speak. Drifting slowly she was a helpless target, her crew watching in anger and terror as a set of nuclear missiles honed in, knowing there was nothing they could do about it. The nukes detonated above and below the _Odin_, the dual shocks breaking the keel of the ship and splitting her in two. Hull seams popped, decks split apart and more missiles ripped the crippled Battlestar apart. Her front half, shredded and alight with flame smashed hard into the yards themselves slicing through hundreds of feet of metal and severing one of the docking piers in a sea of flame.

It came down to one choice, the oldest choice in the world. Fight or flight. The _Pegasus_ had no means to defend itself, and couldn't rely on anyone else to do it for them. There was nothing else to do.

Cain raised her head and in so doing annihilated any doubts or hesitation. She was an Admiral, she was in charge, and now she had come to a decision. All that needed to happen now was for the crew to obey.

"I want all hatches sealed, docking connections severed."

The CIC set about its task, putting out word through the ship. Airlock doors thundered shut, cutting umbilical lines between the burning station and the Battlestar. The ship was still rocking hard as it took a few hits and felt the vibrations of the attack on the station. They were still outside the main zone of attack, but as the main docking bays fell apart the Cylons would soon move out and deal with the outer ships. _Pegasus_ included.

The bow thrusters exploded into white and blue flame, the powerful drives rapidly pushing the massive warship away at emergency speed. The exhaust hit the station like a blow torch, stripping away the surface of the structures in front of the _Pegasus_ as she struggled free. The docking clamps were still attached, the Scorpion yard crew either too busy or too dead to take the time to release them. The connectors strained and split, the articulated army stretching with the _Pegasus_ as she backed away under full power. Suddenly they could take no more, and in bursts of arcing lightning and flaming gas they snapped free and released the Colonial warship, snapping loose like snakes.

Free of the clamps the _Pegasus_ began to pick up speed, turning away. Her thrusters continued to hammer the docking control station, eventually just blasting all the way through the attached buildings. The blocky structure vanished in fire, gutted by the retro engines which now gouged two deep flaming pits in the mass of the Scorpion yards as the warship pulled away, no longer able to know if her actions had just immolated hundreds of dock workers in the frantic escape.

"Lieutenant, spin up our FTL drive."

"Yes sir." Kendra Shaw took the order, assuming the vacant station confidently. She immediately began setting the system up, glad to see the drive coils had not in fact been damaged so far.

"We're preparing for an emergency jump everyone!" Cain warned, preparing her officers for disorientating effects of jump travel. She still had to raise her voice to be heard of the crackle of severed electrical cables and the rumble of the straining engines.

The Cylons finally took notice of the Colonial warship, dousing it in transmissions in an attempt to use the compromised Command Navigation Programme to access the ships systems and shut the Beast down. They failed to find the network as they had with the other Colonial units, so decided instead to handle things in a more direct manner.

"Sir, two more nukes heading straight for us!" Belzen shouted out. "Estimate twenty seconds to impact!"

Shaw heard the report, knew that if those nukes hit in their weakened state it was all over, and saw they were out of luck.

"FTL spooling sir, but without the computer we can't calculate a safe jump."

Cain fixed her gaze on the Lieutenant. "Don't bother calculating, just do it."

"You want to do a blind jump sir?" Shaw asked in horror, the order going against her entire academy training. "We might end up inside a sun!"

"Missiles closing!" Belzen reminded. "Ten seconds!"

The last intact Battlestar besides the _Pegasus_ was struck by a pair of nukes, the veteran Battlestar _Pacifica_ berthed at the next pier along should have been able to easily gun down the missiles, but she did not, could not. They sliced into her flight pod and detonated her munition stores, blowing the hangar decks clean off the ship and throwing the massive vessel sideways taking a massive chunk of the yards with it. Her engines and reactors spouted fire, ripping through the inside of the ship and ending her long and famous career.

The last salvo of nukes were also on their way, followed by hundreds more fighters closing on the last corner of the yards to receive their detailed attention. Other squadrons finished off the battered remnants of the Colonial naval vessels, cutting into the hulls and making sure nothing survived. The only part of the station not on fire or already gutted were the main Tylium stockpiles. Something the Cylons were not ready to waste when they could instead just take it.

Dradis was cluttered, by the nukes, by the bulk of the station interfering with signals and with the shocking amount of debris choking nearby space. But it was clear enough to show the tide of enemy vessels converging on them.

Cain was in no mood to explain herself to a nugget.

"It doesn't matter where we jump to just frakking do it Lieutenant!"

Two gutted _Valkyries_ crunched into each other, jets of flame and debris scattering everywhere. What few fighters had been on patrol were long gone, the helpless pilots watching the end of the worlds in clear and crisp detail as they hung in nothingness. Some may have seen the _Pegasus_ backing away, surrounded by the fires of the fleet yards as she took her last desperate gamble, the two nukes sweeping on without pause or obstacle.

Kendra worked fast, bypassing the safeties and bringing the coils up to full charge.

"FTL is online!" She announced.

"Five seconds!" Belzen stated swiftly.

"Lieutenant, now!" Cain roared harshly in both frustration and anger, her adrenaline working overtime.

Kendra pushed the button, closed her eyes and muttered a quick prayer.

The _Pegasus_ was still backing away, unable to escape under conventional power alone from the massacre. Raiders filled the sky, shattered metal still scraped the hull and the final moments of the massive ship were illuminated in the yellow death glow of the Scorpion yards and her guests. The drives took an agonising second to align, the missiles turning on final approach before ultimately the hull glittered in a bright flash of blue and red light and then she was there no more, sucking millions of cubic feet of venting atmosphere from the station as she vanished.


End file.
